


Taste of Shiva

by orphan_account



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-breakup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 14:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We could have been, Gerard mouthed. Out loud he just asked, “How long?”</p>
<p>Frank laughed bitterly. “Since Bert.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taste of Shiva

**Author's Note:**

> I needed some kind of closure on the Frerard of our material universe; this is what happened.
> 
> Angst angst angst angst angst. Also post-breakup. There is also not any happiness in this. No happy. No kiss. Not even physical contact.

  
Over in the corner, covered in crap, Gerard’s laptop made a happy little chirping noise.

Gerard looked up from his sketchbook, cigarette ash growing precariously long as he determined that the time was whore o’clock in the morning and no one in their right mind would be Skype-calling him.

He put the sketchbook aside, pretending that what he was drawing was unimportant, at least for now. He could spend all of the rest of the morning pondering the meaning of his random doodle. For now, he walked over to the desk, picked up the laptop, scooped up his sketchbook, and marched into his own bedroom, reclining on the bed and answering the call.

The goofy face he hadn’t seen since…the Incident…lit up his screen. The expectant, open-mouthed grin graced thin lips. Gerard arched an eyebrow at the webcam-Frank.

“Did you _need_ something?” Immediately, Frank’s face fell. Score for Gerard.

“Gee,” Frank said, softly. He sounded hurt. Good. He needed to know that Gerard--

“The question stands,” Gerard sighed, reaching over to pick up his favorite ink pen from his nightstand and start inking the damn doodle. He pulled the sketchbook into his lap and scooted the Frank-laptop further from his chest, down to his outstretched knees on the bed.

Frank’s lip--where he’d had the lipring, Gerard noted--disappeared between his teeth. “Where’s Lindsey?” Frank tried, to Gerard’s looking up from his sketch to give a skeptical look to the computer.

“You know motherfucking goddamn well where _Lindsey_ is,” Gerard muttered, trying not to look too bereft. No band. No friends. No wife. Bandit was asleep down the hall. “Ugh,” he tried, shaking his head down at his picture.

“Okay,” Frank said, and there was that hurt tone again. Good. He did need to know that Gerard wasn’t his-- “Gee.”

Not his plaything. “Yes, _Frankie_?” The note of the nickname went sour. ‘Frankie’ had been his from the beginning, slurred out between beers, in hospital beds, whispered across hotel rooms.

Frank flinched visibly at the acid in Gerard’s tone. “Can we--we talk about…” At the scathing look Gerard directed his way, Frank trailed off.

“About what, Frank.”

“Stuff.”

“What is there to say?”

“What I did--why you won’t--why we haven’t--” It wasn’t _Frank_ to be so unsure, so hesitant. But then, Gerard _had_ pulled out his Bandit-Lee-you-have-committed-a-serious-act-missie look, so perhaps there was reason to stutter. “Everything, Gee.”

Gerard sighed, pulling the cap off the end of the pen with his teeth and sucking it between his lips single-mindedly. After about five seconds of vigorous mouth action, he let the cap drop from his mouth into his palm, capping the pen. He saw Frank’s tongue move over his lips. “Why?” he finally asked.

“Do I need a reason?”

Gerard’s fingers carved through his fading red hair, a nervous habit ingrained over years. “If I’m about to have this conversation at fucking ass o’clock in the goddamn morning, you better goddamn well have a reason, Frank Iero.”

Frank kneaded his browline for a moment before saying, more to Gerard’s stomach than his face, “I miss you, Gee.”

Gerard imitated the motion on his end, ending with his hand raking back again. “Well, Christ, Frank, whose fault is that?” he said breathily, pushing his sketchbook off of his lap and drawing his knees up, resting his laptop between thighs and stomach.

“I know what I did was a really _dick_ move--”

Gerard held up a hand for silence, which Frank obeyed. “Frank…” he started, trying to patch together every disjointed thought he’d had since the Incident. “Chem’s over. It’s done. Era’s gone. Yeah, it was part you. It was part me. And Mikey…well, a lot Mikey. And Ray. Mostly you and Mikey.” As Frank’s mouth opened again, Gerard held up his hand again, effectively shutting Frank up. “Between you basically staging a coup and Mikey’s shit, Chem couldn’t hold up.”

“Gee, I’m--”

Gerard talked over him. “I’m not mad that Chem’s over.” It was true. He’d been furious, for a while. Until he couldn’t be furious anymore. Then he’d been sad--or _hollow_. He’d suddenly felt all of his charisma stripped away, leaving behind the geeky artist who played DnD. Solo work wasn’t the same.

Then fan mail had started showing up in his P.O. box. In waves. Cartons and cartons of mail, from thousands of people who would perpetuate Chem, and it was better. Chem was over. But it wasn’t over.

“What’s Mikey--” Frank snapped him out of his reverie with his inquiry.

“Dicking around with Wentz again behind Sarah’s back,” Gerard recited boredly. Mikey’s personal shit just tired him out, just _thinking_ about it.

“He dicked around with Wentz before?” Frank asked, somewhat incredulously. “It was Warped, wasn’t it? I knew Wentz was after Mikey’s--”

“Any way you end that sentence, it belongs to my brother. So don’t,” Gerard interrupted. “But I’m not mad that Chem’s over. I’m not mad that you played so big a part in ending it. I’m not mad that you went off to work with other bands, Frank.”

Just as Frank looked relieved, though, Gerard plowed on. “But I am major-fucking-league _butthurt_ that when Chem ended, I did not hear from you for _weeks_. _No one did_. And then you posted your feelings and shit all over the Internet and never even thought to _text_ me and explain why the fuck you dropped off the grid in the first fucking place.”

“Gee, I just--you--”

“Do I need to list reasons _why_ I should have been texted? Do I need to go there?”

“Gee--”

“Do I?”

“No!” Frank burst out finally. “Gee, I couldn’t. I _couldn’t_. Right after Chem ended, I just--I went home and looked in my bed and expected to see _you_!” Frank kneaded his brow again. “Because it _was_ you, for so fucking long.”

Gerard sighed and put his head in his hand. “We’re not touring anymore,” he offered.

Frank’s hand formed a fist, against which his head thumped once. “Yes, Gee, I _know_. We’re not just not touring anymore, Gee, we’re _never touring again_. My Chemical Romance is _done_. I’m never gonna--” Frank’s eyes squeezed shut. “Gee, I’m never gonna be able to--Gee-- _Gee_ \--”

Gerard watched as Frank shattered, hand flying over his mouth as it pulled down into a grimace, eyes welling up as he breathed out a shaky sob. Having gotten his anger out, Gerard’s heart broke, and he clenched his fist against the urge to reach out--it was only a camera, only an image. He felt his tear ducts start doing that thing they did where they ached before welling up and took a deep breath.

Frank was pulling it together enough to speak again, which was good. “I’d fallen--so fucking _hard_ for you, Gee, I _loved_ you,” he gasped, and Gerard’s lip immediately became a chew toy.

“I loved you too,” he breathed.

“And I never told you,” Frank continued in a rush, once the shock of Gerard’s breathy confession wore off, “and you never knew and now that you know, we’re done and we can’t ever _do_ anything ever again, except feel like shit because we could have been fucking magnificent.”

_We could have been_ , Gerard mouthed. Out loud he just asked, “How long?”

Frank laughed bitterly. “Since Bert.”

Gerard pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, whispering, “Frank,” on a shattered breath. He remembered too well the night he’d called Frank, drunk and suicidal, to tell him that Bert had crushed him. Frank had made him drink ipecac so he threw up the downers and vodka and had--

It wasn’t important to note that Frank had just cradled his limp body all night. It wasn’t important that Frank had burst into tears on seeing that Gerard woke up from the sleep he’d slipped into before Frank got there. It wasn’t important.

It couldn’t be important.

It couldn’t _be_.

“Frank,” he tried again. He opened his eyes and met Frank’s digital gaze, and every moment came pounding down upon him at once, paralyzing his vocal cords and rendering him speechless, when he needed words. Three words. Please, God, just let him say three words.

“Gee?” Frank prompted quietly. Gerard blinked once. He swallowed. He fisted the bedspread out of Frank’s line of sight. He pressed his lips together and then opened them, exhaling noisily. Just three words.

“It’s over now,” he finally choked out. It was quiet, but it was firm. And out there, final, resolute. “It has to be.”

Frank broke. It was visible in the line of his shoulders and the tiny breath he let out, like something invisible had just punched him. It was there in the way he pushed back his hair and just nodded. “Okay,” he murmured. “Okay.”

Gerard took his one moment to be totally weak. “Friends?”

Frank shook his head. “I don’t think…for a while, Gerard.”

Gerard swallowed thickly. “Okay,” he whispered, blinking far too quickly. “Okay, Frank.”

“Bye, Gerard.” Frank’s voice was hollow.

“Have a good tour, Frank,” Gerard’s broken tone replied.

The camera went black. Gerard slammed the laptop shut and pulled his sketchbook back to him, sobbing loudly and embarrassingly as he looked down at the drawing in his lap, writing the word ‘aeternum’ across the top in elaborate script with his pen.

It was Frank. He was an angel.


End file.
